“If every man took only what was sufficient for his needs, leaving the rest to those in want, there would be no rich and no poor.”
—St. Basil the Great
Category: BEST OF
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Think of the life energy expended in the ownership of a single possession: planning for it, reading reviews about it, looking for the best deal on it, earning (or borrowing) the money to buy it, going to the store to purchase it, transporting it home, finding a place to put it, learning how to use it, cleaning it (or cleaning around it), maintaining it, buying extra parts for it, insuring it, protecting it, trying not to break it, fixing it when you do, and sometimes making payments on it even after you’ve disposed of it. Now multiply this by the number of items in your home.
The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide: How to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify Your Life
Francine Jay -
When we open a closet full of things, instead of feeing thankful that we have what we need, we feel stressed because we see a need to organize. How tragic! Owning fewer material items actually makes it easier to be thankful for what we have. When we have less stuff, we somehow appreciate the stuff we do have more.
Invite Delight
Evelyn Rennich -
Pull any item off a retail shelf, carry it to the corrals of cash registers, and you can exchange the money you’ve earned to bring the thing home with you.
But the true cost of a thing goes well beyond the price on the pricetag.
The cost of…
Storing the thing.
Maintaining the thing.
Cleaning the thing.
Watering the thing.
Feeding the thing.
Charging the thing.
Accessorizing the thing.
Refueling the thing.
Changing the oil of thing.
Replacing the batteries of the thing.
Fixing the thing.
Repainting the thing.
Taking care of the thing.
Thinking about the thing.
Worrying about the thing.
Protecting the thing.
Replacing the thing.When you add it all up, the actual cost of owning a thing is nearly immeasurable. So we better choose carefully what things we bring into our lives, because we can’t afford every-thing.
The Actual Cost of Owning a Thing
The Minimalists -
But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
—George Eliot, Middlemarch -
“But remember this, whenever you begin to consider whether you may safely take one draught more, it is then high time to give over : let that be accounted a sign late enough to break off; for every reason to doubt is a sufficient reason to part the company.”
—Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667), On Christian Sobriety – Rules for obtaining temperance. -
“There’s a solo journey that everyone goes on. You can be with all your people [that you love], but if you don’t feel fulfilled with the place or your purpose in the place, then it doesn’t matter how much love you have [around you].”
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My child, it often happens that a man seeks ardently after something he desires and then when he has attained it he begins to think that it is not at all desirable; for affections do not remain fixed on the same thing, but rather flit from one to another. It is no very small matter, therefore, for a man to forsake himself even in things that are very small.
A man’s true progress consists in denying himself, and the man who has denied himself is truly free and secure.
—Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ -
Most married people did not marry on the proper bases. Consequently, they suffer regret for having married. Unable to confront themselves with this fact, they enter into an unconscious psychological trick, called denial, i.e., denying the suffering of regret. Having convinced themselves that a troublesome marriage is better than living a single life, they strive to comfort and console themselves.
When such people meet a happy unmarried person, they get disturbed by their status which shakes and threatens the foundation supporting their views and arouses the feeling of regret for their situation. Such an unhappily married person may, in an aggressive and hastening manner, start pressuring the single person to marry. They support their contention with some weak and unconvincing arguments such as:
“Marriage is the rule of life. Everyone should marry. Our fathers and grandfathers told us that everybody should marry, etc”
I Have No One: The Problem with Delayed Marriage
Dr. Niveen Adel Sadek
SO GOOD QUOTES 